GOVERNMENT FAILS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

This recent ill-advised federal crackdown on California's (and the
country's) "cannabis problem" is a heartless, brutal slap in the face
of medical cannabis patients everywhere. There can be no
justification for the stigmatization we are forced to suffer every
day just because we have discovered, and wish to take advantage of,
the many beneficial healing powers of this botanical wonder. We have
lost faith in the chemical pill and are terrified of the side
effects. Just because we believe in the right to decide what medicine
we put in our own bodies we are being treated like second-class citizens.

If our dispensaries are destroyed, many cannabis consumers might
survive not too uncomfortably. But unfortunately, there are the tens
of thousands of patients here in California and more thousands all
across the country who will, now because of their untreated ailments,
suffer greatly if dispensaries are shut down. It gets worse if they
end up back in the pharmaceutical pill pit. Or, if they are unable to
grow their own, even worse yet as they seek out the street dealers
and are systematically arrested by undercover narcs and made to pay
most dearly in our criminal justice system.

Our government has failed us badly here - first the state government
for allowing the industry to expand, and then not defending it, and
the feds for so brutally violating constitutional rights just to prove a point.

- - Robert Galia, Chico